Conference: Mature Discipleship

When we call a human being “mature” – what do we exactly mean?

How can we develop a mature state of being?

And why is this an essential requirement for a spiritual path and the encounter with the true teacher?  

Our conference addresses this issue and illuminates the essential significance of a mature attitude within us and how it serves us on the inner path. Moving towards a mature state of being nurtures the willingness to take responsibility for our lives and allows us to mature into an inner human that loves the truth being thus ready to receive the spiritual teaching with all one’s heart.

What kind of obstacles do we face on the inner path? What support do we need and what nourishes us?

The three teachers approach these questions from their different perspectives with different methods which are also applied at the conference. During these days you are invited to take an interest in yourself, to gain fundamental knowledge and essential impulses, and to have time for experiences, exchange and contemplation. The modern monastery Gut Saunstorf is a silent place worthy for this conference and invites all people interested in an inner path.

In his lecture, Wilfried Nelles will outline the history and stages of human consciousness that in his view form the basis of all psychology and therapy. Against this background he then presents his new constellation work, the "Life Integration Process". This method is not about one’ place in the family or other systems, but on the contrary about seeing one's very individual self and about the full consent to one's own life story and to oneself just the way we are.

Mary Angelon Young talks about her own discipleship and the intensive being with a Guru and gives practical insights into the path of the Bauls (wandering monks whose philosophy says that the divine is not to be found in the hereafter but in the human being itself). She introduces the participants to a mature perspective of discipleship on the inner path, shaped by the fire of spiritual practice in daily life. Her own experience on the spiritual path has taught her that we must give up childlike dependencies in order to follow the truth that truly frees us.

In his lecture, the spiritual teacher OM C. Parkin explains the concept of conscious discipleship as an adult state of maturity of the inner disciple, as it were a prerequisite for a fruitful relationship between disciple and teacher on the path of cognition. He divides this relationship into three phases or stages of development: "The first two phases are determined by the childlike disciple/student, who reacts to his own projected images of father or mother. Only in the third phase does the spiritual teacher come into play. Through him the guru-principle works, an impersonal, spiritual principle, which is still largely unknown in our culture. It has neither been recognized by the church as guardian of our spiritual culture nor by the Enlightenment, let alone appreciated".